Holland remade her geography last week with the closing of the last gap in an 18-mile dike between Wieringen and Friesland, thus putting an end to the famed Zuyder Zee.

Plump Queen Wilhelmina beamed, so did the plump Prince Consort. Comfortable Princess Juliana went out to inspect the new villages near Wieringen and thousands of Dutch trippers on hundreds of excursion boats yelled themselves hoarse. But at Volendam and Marken, those overexploited bits of quaintness, fishing boats were tied in…